This means being wary of false cognates, especially in French.
A cognate is a word that is similar to a word in English. For example, in French "la tradition" is very similar looking and sounding to the word "tradition" in English. And since it is a cognate, that is what it means.
A false cognate is a word that looks and sounds very similar to a word in English, but it does not share a similar meaning. For example, "chair" in French is not something to sit on. It is basically "flesh" in English.
So, it was very important to realize the false cognate "naturaliste" when I visited this small seaside town in the south of France. This particular town is inhabited by "les naturalistes" during the warmer months (I visited in January). Naturalist has a different meaning in English, while in French "naturaliste" means nudest. This bit of new vocabulary was and will be extremely helpful in the future.
Cognates and false cognates are an important part of literacy in teaching and learning world languages.
Oh, Dana, how right you are! I often think about the meaning attached to cognates, the false ones can be funny. Not for you on the French beach with a suit on... but this post made me think of how we think we know what we are saying with the words we choose, but they may be interpreted very differently. It's like false cognates all over the place in English, sometimes, even though it's the native language. Thanks for this idea!
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